Woman with Flower

Woman with Flower

By Naomi Long Madgett

I wouldn’t coax the plant if I were you.

Such watchful nurturing may do it harm.

Let the soil rest from so much digging.

And wait until it’s dry before you water it.

The leaf’s inclined to find its own direction;

Give it a chance to seek the sunlight for itself.

Much growth is stunted by too careful prodding,

Too eager tenderness.

The things we love we have to learn to leave alone.

The Cocoon

A man had found a cocoon of a butterfly. One day a small opening appeared. He sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body through that little hole. Then, it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could, and it could go no further. So the man decided to help the butterfly. He took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of cocoon. The butterfly then emerged easily, but it had a swollen body and small, shriveled wings. The man continued to watch the butterfly because he expected that at any moment, the wings would enlarge and expand to be able to support the body, which would contract in time. Neither happened. In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings. It never was able to fly. What the man, in his kindness and haste, did not understand was that the restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to get through the tiny opening, were nature’s way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings, so that it would be ready for flight once it had achieved its freedom from the cocoon. Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our lives. If the Universe allowed us to go through our lives without any obstacles, it would cripple us. We would not be as strong as what we could have been. We could never fly!